These are the current mainstream video display technologies available today. DILA is short for Digital Image Light Amplification, LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display, DLP corresponds to Digital Light Projection, and CRT means Cathode Ray Tube. Plasma, of course, is indicative of a type of electrically charged gas material.

Of these types of technologies, CRT is the most mature, yielding the highest overall quality video images. Being a phosphor technology, it is the most flexible and natural in itís color rendition and perfect black levels (zero light output), but also limited in overall light output as well as complex to align and calibrate. Since CRT technology is steadily being replaced by the smaller, simpler ìdigitalî projector technologies, it is typically only available as a very high end product at this time.

            LCD is, generally speaking, the oldest Digital technology of todayís lamp driven displays. It is basically a high output lamp shooting itís light though an optics system comprised of color splitting dichroic (colored) mirrors and LCD panels that block the light path a given amount for every pixel in the image. Since it is a transmissive (passing light ìthroughî) device, it is subject to losses due to the quality of panel and optics materials. These same materials can cause significant color shift, as well. Although great inroads have been made in terms of materials quality and transmissive abilities, LCD is nearing the realistic limits of itís technology due to the fact that the structure of LCD panels makes it very difficult to squeeze the pixels closer together (pixel density) at a reasonable cost factor. The other problem is that for increased pixel density, it requires a more powerful lamp to reproduce the desired light output, so as resolution increases, so does lamp power and thus, heat, need for ventilation and stronger optics materials, and noise.

            DILA and DLP fall into the category of ìreflectiveî technology, that is they reflect a given amount of light for every pixel of the image. Of these two DLP is the newest and most unique. It utilizes a DMD (Digital Micro-mirror Device) chip that has hundreds of thousands to millions (depending on resolution) of tiny, hinged mirrors on itís face. These shutter back and forth between on and off a given amount of times in a given period of time, to produce the necessary amount of light for each pixel of the image. There is almost zero light loss and the pixels can be crammed extremely close together, reducing the ìscreen doorî effect common to LCD. This also results in a lower lamp output requirement, which, in turn helps reduce heat, cooling requirements, noise, etc. Since it is a reflective device, the color rendition is very accurate with excellent tracking and image detail. Since the DMD device is basically a memory chip in itís architecture, it is relatively simple to scale up to higher resolutions while yielding unparalleled reliability. DLPís main drawback is a relatively poor black level and low contrast ratio on video sources. Great strides are being made on these issues every day, thus assuring that DLP will be one of the premier technologies of the future.

            DILA is closely related to the LCD family of digital products by being a reflective LCD film device. It works essentially the same way as the DLPís in this respect but does so utilizing the best that LCD technology has to offer. Since the actual device is not made of a glasslike substance like typical LCDís and is much smaller, the density ratio of pixels can be considerably higher. So much so, in fact, that DILA is currently the packaging champion with respect to pixel density. Hence, the resolution problem of LCD is solved, enabling significantly higher resolution capabilities. As of this writing, HDTV/QXGA models are just now being shown, and will soon be available for super high-end applications. DILA does have its drawbacks, however. They are significantly larger than the tiny DLP and LCD projectors, and they commonly suffer similar color shifting problems like LCD (although typically very slight).

            Plasma is the newest digital technology (although a very old concept) and possibly the most interesting. In laymanís terms, it is basically a cross between LCD and CRT technology. It is built like an LCD, but produces itís light in a similar manner to CRT, using analog voltages and current to excite a charged gas to emit light. Due to the large size of these displays, it is very costly to produce the highest typical resolution plasma panels. They benefit from their inherent shallow architecture to create very compact packaging, but suffer in image quality due to the rather large comparative distances between pixels. Color rendition and contrast ratio tend to be good, but black levels suffer from low resolution color decoding, yielding quite a bit of low image light scene artifacts. Like CRT, plasma also can wear out itís display elements and is subject to screen burn, while the only wear element on the other Digital technologies is the lamp.